For many people of various faiths, support for the scientific theory
of evolution has not supplanted their religious belief. And throughout
the modern Judeo-Christian tradition, leaders have asserted that evolutionary
science offers a valid perspective on the natural world. They say that
evolution is consistent with religious doctrine and complements, rather
than conflicts with, religion.

There are, however, some Christians -- in particular, fundamentalists
and some evangelicals -- who perceive a conflict between evolution and their
literal interpretation of the Bible.

In this panel, we hear personal perspectives from scientists and a historian
of science -- religious people who represent a range of faiths.

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Arthur
Peacocke is a physical biochemist and Anglican
priest who pioneered early research into the physical
chemistry of DNA and has since become a leading
advocate for the creative interaction between faith
and science. The 2001 winner of the Templeton Prize
for Progress in Religion, he is the author of Paths
from Science Towards God: The End of All Our Exploring
(2001).

From my scientific background as a physical biochemist
who, for nearly three decades in the mid-20th
century, was much involved in unravelling the
relation of the double-helical structure of DNA
to its solution properties, I have long had an
interest in the relation of genetics to biological
evolution. The sequencing of DNA and proteins
in a large range of species from bacteria to Homo
sapiens has now crowned the previous strong
evidence for the historical interconnectedness
and a common origin of all living organisms and
for evolution. The role of natural selection
in this process is proven dominant, though I
do not exclude the possibility that other natural
factors*, widely discussed at the moment, may
also be operative. The whole process is entirely
natural and explicable by the sciences without
requiring any special, non-natural, "lures" or
influences.

As a theist -- one who
considers that the best explanation of the existence
and lawfulness of the natural world is that it depends
for its existence and inbuilt rationality on a self-existent
Ultimate Reality (a Creator "God") -- I find the
epic of evolution, from the "Hot Big Bang" to Homo
sapiens, an illumination of how the Creator God
is and has been creating. Evolution enriches
our insights into the nature and purposes of the
divine creation -- its fecundity, variety, its ability
to manifest an increase in complexity to the point
where the physical stuff of the world acquires the
(holistic) capacity to be self-conscious, to think
(in "mental" activity), to instantiate values and
to relate to its Creator (in "spiritual" activity).
I regard God as creating in, with, and through the
natural as unveiled by the sciences; hence I espouse
a "theistic naturalism."

*To name a few: the possible
operation of self-organising principles; how the
evolution of an organism can depend on its innovative
behaviour; and "top-down causation" through flow
of information from the environment to the organism.